The new Committee, appointed on the 15th, took a fortnight to complete their scheme, on the adopted principles that there should be one Chamber, no dissolution, and a power of retarding legislation without preventing it. On the 29th it was laid before the Assembly by their reporter, Thouret. The voice was the voice of Thouret, but the hand was the hand of Sieyes. At that juncture he augured ill of the Revolution, and repented of his share in it. His Declaration of Rights had been passed over. His proposal to restore the national credit by the surrender of tithe had been rejected. His partition of the Assembly, together with partial renewal, which is favourable to the executive, by never allowing the new parliament to rise, like a giant refreshed, from a general election, had encountered no support. It remained that he should compose the working machinery for his essential doctrine, that the law is the will of him that obeys, not of him that commands. To do this, the Abbe Sieyes abolished the historic Provinces, and divided France into departments. There were to be eighty, besides Paris; and as they were designed to be as nearly as possible equal to a square of about forty-five miles, they differed widely in population and property. They were to have an average of nine deputies each: three for the superficial area, which was invariable; three, more or less, for population; and again three, more or less, according to the amount which the department contributed to the national income. In this way territory, numbers and wealth were represented equally. Deputies were to be elected in three degrees. The taxpayers, in their primary assemblies, chose electors for the Commune, which was the political unit, and a square of about fifteen miles; the communal electors sent their representatives to the department, and these elected the deputy. Those who paid no taxes were not recognized as shareholders in the national concern. Like women and minors, they enjoyed the benefit of government; but as they were not independent, they possessed no power as active citizens. By a parallel process, assemblies were formed for local administration, on the principle that the right of exercising power proceeds from below, and the actual exercise of power from above. This is mainly the measure which has made the France of to-day; and when it became law, in December, the chief part of the new Constitution was completed. It had been the work of these two months, from August 4 to September 29. The final promulgation came two years later. No legislative instrument ever failed more helplessly than this product of the wisdom of France in its first parliamentary Assembly, for it lasted only a single year.